


Everything is Different Now

by Novantinuum (ChromaticDreams)



Series: Crack the Paragon [2]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Exile, Fic bonus scene, Gen, Post-Episode: s03e24 Bismuth, Self-Reflection, Swords, Weapon Forging
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:40:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27232888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChromaticDreams/pseuds/Novantinuum
Summary: After her unfortunate exile, Bismuth returns to her forge to work, and to reflect on her mistakes.
Series: Crack the Paragon [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1775119
Comments: 18
Kudos: 35





	Everything is Different Now

**Author's Note:**

> This is a quick bonus scene set after chapter 5 of Crack the Paragon, an AU diverging from the season three episode _Bismuth._ This is probably best enjoyed with full context, but for anyone who’s checking this one-shot out blind, the brief is as follows:
> 
> Steven got cracked and split in two during the fight in the forge, a turn of events that also led to the early reveal that his gem is a pink diamond. He was healed, but Garnet decided to exile Bismuth as punishment for harming a fellow Crystal Gem. This short checks in with her after she’s returned to her forge, alone.

_Clang._

Shapeshifted hard light slams against metal, red-hot and malleable.

_Clang._

Each and every hit is precise, calculated, the living legacy of a weaponsmith who’s been perfecting her chosen art upon her own volition for hundreds of years. Homeworld may try to exert her rigidity and control on everything she touches, may try to claim that every subclass of Gem is fundamentally indistinguishable within their role and potential, but mark her words, there’s not a single Bismuth out there who possesses the same level of aptitude as she does in the forge.

_Clang. Clang. Clang._

The billet gradually lengthens, becoming thiner as the metal spreads. Clenching her teeth all the while, vying to exert every ounce of focus she can muster on her work, Bismuth forms this miserable hunk of metal into a base for a quartz sized sword. Once she’s drawn it out to the appropriate length and tapered the end into a point, she wills her working hand to shapeshift from a mallet to a round-nosed fullering tool. She grabs a material hammer with her free hand, presses the rounded nose to the surface of the blade, and then slams the hammer’s steel face down atop it... over and over and over again, forming a ridge all the way down the length of the sword.

When she’s finally done with this blade she turns around with it to thrust it into the lava waterfall to heat treat, reveling in the tingling sensation of molten rock coating her hand. One, two, three, four, five seconds in the heat and it’s done, afterwards dipped into the vat of water she keeps beside her anvil to cool. Breathing heavy, she lifts the finished blade out of the vat to inspect it, and— seeing the metal already beginning to warp— lets out a yell of frustration, the edges colored with a bitter mixture of blistering resentment and despair. She winds back and hurls the blade to today’s junk pile, populated by a good dozen scrapped swords that have all either cracked or warped after cooling, a clandestine monument to her failure as both an artisan, a-and...

_“—as consequence for striking a fellow Crystal Gem in cold blood—“_

_That youthful, terrified face, tearstained eyes blown wide, desperately scuttling away on hands and feet as she, boiling with misplaced fury, rears back to vault across the bubbling lava—_

Her form shaking upon the memory, she clenches her fists in resolution and stubbornly goes at it again. Clutching a new handful of iron pellets, she thrusts them under the molten waterfall to compress them into a new billet within her grip. She’ll get it right this time. She _will_ get it right. She’s Bismuth, for shard’s sake! She’s the only specimen of her cut who’s stubborn and determined enough to get the job done, to outfit an entire rebellion with material weapons in but a fraction of a cycle’s time. She’s a Crystal Gem! She’s—

_“—no longer welcome in the temple,”_ Garnet’s recent words hit her square in the chest, a metaphoric breaking point.

Her face screwing tight in every shade of her shame, she shapeshifts her working hand into a mallet again and begins to pound away at her new hunk of metal. In body her action is repetitive, precise, and yet within the recesses of her mind she’s unable to match this level of focused discipline, unable to dodge the bitter reminders of all her mistakes.

_Clang._

_The sound of a cracking gemstone, of a crusade gone too far. She throws her deadly weapon aside, filled with dawning horror for what- w-what she almost— Two bodies. There’s two bodies now, one pink and glitching and looking so much like him, and the other... oh stars, pick him up, pick him UP—_

_“I was angry at Rose,” (that two-timing, upper crust of a LIAR!) she tells the others later, "not Steven...”_

_Clang._

_“I was so sure that this was all just another one of her lies that I—_ “

Bismuth clenches her teeth, crushing the thought of her former leader’s betrayal underfoot as she begins to slam her mallet down upon the slowly lengthening blade over and over again, relieving just a shard of bitterness and sorrow and outrage with each successive hit.

_Clang, clang, clang!_

But it won’t ever be enough. Not ever, even if she continues outfitting a nonexistent rebellion force alone here in this forge for the rest of time. Everything she ever thought she could place her trust in was a lie. The Crystal Gems were just a front for a diamond’s games, this small half-human boy she almost shattered had nothing to do with Rose’s tricks all along, and now her few remaining friends don’t want anything to do with her ever again. She’s been exiled, stripped of rank. And the worst part is, she knows they’re absolutely right for doing so. She cracked one of their own at point blank, without hesitation. A Gem like that isn’t safe to have serving alongside the rebels.

Garnet should’ve bubbled her again anyways.

She flips the blade over on the anvil, hard light swirling through her form like a maelstrom to match the trajectory of her turbulent emotions.

_Clang, clang, clang, clang!_

Bismuth lifts her hand high above her head to impart a fifth and final hit to the lengthening sword. Upon impact, however, the cooling metal cracks in half right through the middle, a stress fracture to mirror her shattered soul. Even though she’s more than capable of quickly fixing such mistakes, more than capable of re-heating these pieces and hammering them flush even stronger than before, something about the sight of the jagged edges laying vulnerable and abandoned is enough to make her externally break. Tears bud at the corners of her furious, anguished eyes. With an audible sob, she crashes to her knees, fluid now streaming down her cheeks. Slumping across the head of her anvil, she mourns the new life with her friends she _could’ve_ had, should she have made different decisions in the heat of the moment.

Everything is different now.

**Author's Note:**

> I always felt bad for needing to nudge Bismuth out of the plot so early in Crack the Paragon, (although don't worry, she'll be relevant again later), so this is my consolation for that: a short focused entirely on her mental sphere regarding this whole incident. Even if she made a pretty ooof mistake in _actually_ cracking Steven in this AU turn of events, I can't help but feel awful for her and this whole painful situation.


End file.
